Cryptocurrency
Tether’s game plan in El Salvador: Why invest in Volcano Energy?

Stablecoin issuer Tether has dipped into its war chest to invest in El Salvador’s $1 billion renewable energy project to help drive Bitcoin adoption in the Central American nation.
The Tether issuer is one of a handful of companies investing in El Salvador’s renewable power generation project. Volcano Energy is set to generate electricity from solar and wind energy in El Salvador to power future Bitcoin mining operations in the country.
The planned 241-megawatt (MW) renewable energy park is the latest move in El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption drive after the country made BTC legal tender back in 2021.
Cointelegraph caught up with Tether’s chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino during Money 20/20 in Amsterdam. Ardoino — who is attending the renowned finance and payments convention promoting Bitfinex Pay and the Lightning Network — delved into several topics concerning Tether, Bitfinex and the wider cryptocurrency space.
Just two days before the interview, Tether announced it would be investing in Volcano Energy to gain exposure to energy production and leverage the facility to power Bitcoin mining farms in the future.
There is also an ideological element to the move, with Ardoino stressing his belief that El Salvador is blazing a trail for sovereign Bitcoin adoption despite the relatively slow uptake of BTC as a payment option in the country.
Ardoino drew parallels to the European Union adopting the euro as a continental currency in the early 2000s, which required significant resources to change existing financial infrastructure, as well as buy-in from citizens of its 27 member states.
“Given all the powers that they had, it still took five, six years, and yet people were super confused.”
The proliferation of Bitcoin as a payment method in El Salvador has had some teething problems, as explored by Cointelegraph journalist Joe Hall in a recent visit to the country using BTC as a primary means of payment.
Ardoino contends that the path to widespread BTC use and adoption in El Salvador will take time, considering that citizens are not being forced to use the alternative currency in their everyday lives:
“It’s extremely unfair to expect that the whole population will use Bitcoin because, first of all, it’s not forced. Adoption is through private companies and public investments, rather than being taxpayer money.”
Tether’s investment in the country’s energy production program is part of a two-fold strategy. Firstly, investing in energy-producing infrastructure holds its own value, which can then be utilized to power Bitcoin mining operations.
Ardoino also argued against the prevailing narratives around the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining and critiques of the industry for putting a strain on the global energy grid:
“Firstly, the majority of Bitcoin mining is already happening with renewable energy. Secondly, Bitcoin mining is mainly using excess energy anyway, but even more so if we first build the energy production.”
Ardoino said Tether’s investment alongside a group of 12 investors aims to build an energy production facility that companies, factories and households can also tap into. The excess energy from Volcano Energy will be used for BTC mining to help make El Salvador a “unicorn with its own unique story.”
Cryptocurrency
Arthur Hayes Is Selling: Here Are the Altcoins He’s Ditching

The cryptocurrency market reached new heights in July as the total cap exceeded $4 trillion for the first time ever, led by bitcoin’s new peak above $123,000 and several altcoins’ rallies to ATHs, such as XRP and BNB.
The past few days, though, have gone in the opposite direction, with many altcoins charting double-digit price declines, while BTC plunged to a three-week low of under $113,000.
During these turbulent times of uncertainty, perhaps prompted by Trump’s latest tariffs and the movement of US nuclear submarines close to strategic Russian locations, prominent industry names, such as Arthur Hayes, have started to sell off. Here’s which altcoins the BitMEX co-founder sold in the past 24 hours.
ETH, ENA, PEPE Being Sold
As the data shared by the analytics resource Lookonchain points out, Hayes has used one of his known addresses to dispose of over $8 million worth of ETH, $4.6 million in ENA, and $414,700 worth of the third-largest meme coin by market cap – PEPE.
Later, the Maelstrom exec clarified that the reason for his sales is mostly related to Trump’s tariffs, many of which are set to be implemented starting from August 1. He believes BTC and ETH will retrace, as the former would retest the $100,000 resistance, while the latter will head toward $3,000.
Y? US Tariff bill coming due in 3q … at least the mrkt believes that after NFP print. No major econ is creating enough credit fast enough to boost nominal gdp. So $BTC tests $100k, $ETH tests $3k. Come see my @WebX_Asia Tokyo keynote Aug 25 for more info. Back to the beach. https://t.co/zuHlwgQKC7
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) August 2, 2025
Hayes is far from the only larger crypto investor turning to a sell-off strategy amid this market uncertainty. Lookonchain identified an unknown whale that had deposited over $90 million worth of ETH to several exchanges within a span of just two days.
Not SharpLink, Though
While some whales and Hayes are rushing to sell ETH, the second-largest ether holder, SharpLink, has taken the opportunity to increase its impressive stash.
SharpLink(@SharpLinkGaming) spent another 108.57M $USDC to buy $ETH in the past 9 hours and received 14,933 $ETH($52.56M) 3 hours ago.
SharpLink now holds a total of 464,209 $ETH($1.63B).https://t.co/cW8EvzSFxthttps://t.co/7wH1lpRocu pic.twitter.com/weDyfVzm1J
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 2, 2025
After accumulating another 14,933 ETH, the company now owns over $1.6 billion worth of Ethereum’s underlying asset (464,209 ETH), according to Lookonchain. Data from CoinGecko and strategicethreserve shows that SharpLink’s Ethereum fortune is second only to Bitmine’s 566,766 ETH.
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Cryptocurrency
XRP, TON Defy Market Correction as BTC, Alts Continue to Melt Down: Weekend Watch

Bitcoin’s adverse price movements that started on Thursday continued in the past 24 hours, with the asset sliding to a new multi-week low of under $113,000.
With multiple altcoins in the red as well, including a new all-time low for Pi, it’s no wonder that the total crypto market cap has dumped by nearly $250 billion in a few days.
BTC Keeps Dropping
The primary cryptocurrency experienced a brief retracement at the end of the previous business week when it dipped from $119,000 to under $115,000 amid substantial sell-offs by Galaxy Digital on behalf of a client. However, once the sale was completed, BTC recovered most losses and even headed toward $120,000 after the weekend.
The bears were quick to intercept the move and didn’t allow another price jump. Bitcoin remained calm until Wednesday, when the latest FOMC meeting was scheduled to take place. Despite the positive US GDP data for Q2 and Trump’s continued pleas for rate reduction, Powell and company left them unchanged for a fifth consecutive time.
BTC reacted with an immediate price slip to under $116,000 but bounced off and challenged $119,000 on Thursday morning. However, more Trump-induced volatility followed amid new tariff developments and nuclear sub movements, and bitcoin plunged below $113,000 on Friday evening for the first time since July 10.
It has recovered around a grand since then, but it’s still 1% in the red daily and 3% down weekly. Its market cap is down to $2.260 trillion, while its dominance stands tall at 60%.
XRP Fares Well
Most larger-cap alts have followed BTC on the way south, with even bigger price declines. ETH has slipped below $3,500 after a 4% daily drop, SOL is below $165, while DOGE, HYPE, LINNK, BCH, and HBAR have retraced by around 3-4%.
Pi Network’s native token dumped to another all-time low earlier today, while ENA has plunged by 7%. There are a few exceptions from the larger-cap alts, including XRP and LTC, which are slightly in the green. TON has risen by over 3.5% to almost $3.6.
The total crypto market cap has dumped to $3.750 trillion on CG. This means that the metric has lost roughly $250 billion since Thursday’s peak.
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Cryptocurrency
Coinbase Tanks 11% Pre-Market After $1.5B Q2 Revenue Miss

Coinbase shares fell sharply after the company reported second-quarter earnings that missed expectations. Total revenue for the quarter came in at $1.5 billion, representing a 26% decline from the previous quarter.
The shortfall was largely driven by weaker-than-expected transaction revenue, which fell 39% quarter-over-quarter to $764 million.
Missing Expectations
In the official release, Coinbase revealed that its subscription and services revenue also declined 6% to $656 million. Despite efforts to reduce variable costs, operating expenses climbed 15% to $1.5 billion. Coinbase attributed this largely to the $307 million hit related to the data breach disclosed in May.
The crypto exchange recorded a net income of $1.4 billion, but this figure included $1.5 billion in pre-tax unrealized gains from strategic investments, including in Circle, as well as a $362 million pre-tax gain from its crypto investment portfolio. On an adjusted basis, net income stood at just $33 million, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $512 million.
Coinbase’s trading activity also underperformed the broader crypto spot market, as global and US crypto spot volumes declined 31% and 32% respectively. Meanwhile, its total trading volume fell 40% to $237 billion, and the consumer segment witnessed a 45% drop to $43 billion.
Consumer transaction revenue plunged 41% to $650 million, as volume shifted toward Simple trades amid low volatility. Institutional transaction revenue also saw a similar pattern, down 38% in both volume and revenue.
While Base Chain activity grew, other transaction revenue dropped 21% as average revenue per transaction declined.
As of the close on the previous trading day, Coinbase (COIN) shares were priced at $377.76, up slightly by $0.28. However, pre-market trading shows a sharp decline, with the stock down $42.30 (-11.20%) to $335.46. This steep drop suggests a strong negative reaction from investors, likely in response to recent earnings results.
Despite grappling with declining revenues and rising costs, Coinbase is doubling down on product innovation.
“Everything App”
Earlier this month, Coinbase rebranded its Wallet as the Base app, launching a crypto-focused “everything app” that merges trading, social media, USDC payments, mini-apps, and tokenized posts.
Announced at its “A New Day One” conference, the app runs on Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network and integrates Farcaster for social feeds, Zora for post tokenization, and encrypted XMTP chat. Users can earn from tips, interact with AI agents, and make one-tap payments.
The platform also introduced Base Pay for Shopify merchants and plans 1% USDC cashback in the US. The app is in beta, while a full public release and developer tools are expected soon.
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